HOME | DD
ChatlaninKyr — Private spacecraft
Published: 2018-04-09 18:14:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 2300; Favourites: 56; Downloads: 38
Redirect to original
Description
What's the point of living in an interstellar civilization actively exploiting deep space resources if you can't buy your own spaceship? Luckily for its denizens, in the ISFU setting anybody with average income is usually capable of such a purchase, even if having to save money for a while. Unluckily, those who can't be described as ridiculously rich or, alternatively, aren't important political, cultural, or military figures, can never hope to afford a private starship with FTL drive. What they are able to get, aside from unmanned drone ships and satellites, is a type of spacecraft shown above: the capsule ship.This designation dates back to pre-FTL era of the Dapfnib civilization. As the homeworld and the colony's orbital infrastructure expanded, and numbers of personnel stationed in space increased, it eventually became economically feasible in case of satellite malfunction to send a repair team instead of commissioning a new one. With nuclear engines too expensive for the purpose, and elecrtic propulsion having too low thrust, repairmen had to use chemical rockets to move around in the planet's gravity well. Tight delta-V budget imposed severe restrictions on the spacecraft's mass: usually, it consisted of a living capsule barely large enough for two Dapfnib to live in for several days, and a generic propulsion bus.
Likewise, modern capsule ships aren't the most high-tech spacecrafts out there, but they look almost luxurious compared to their predecessors — the airlock alone is often as large as the old ships' whole living space. Most of them (just as a bulk of space traffic in general) operate in gas giant systems. There, they perform a set of tasks one might easily guess: satellite deployment and maintenance, space debris recovery, urgent cargo delivery and passenger transportation, and the like. Some capsule ships are customized for certain types of missions, while other have wider specialization at the expence of efficiency.
The depicted Fesdshen-Iarkhax SMC-25-C1 is a rather typical capsule ship produced by — and mostly for — Dapfnib. It consists of an autonomous command module and a service module with cargo section, propellant tank and main engine. In accordance with safety requirements, command module can only approach major space stations and inhabited celestial bodies on its own. Its chemical propulsion system gives it delta-V of 1.55 km/s. Equipping the module with aft landing gear would have allowed it to use rockets for landing and take-off, but the owner decided to settle on lighter front-mounted struts. Still, with its RCS thrusters, command module is able to land on bodies with 0.08 m/s2 surface gravity.
With two modules coupled and full propellant (LH2) load, the ship has delta-V of 55 km/s, which is more than enough to reach any orbit of a gas giant system. In addition, gravity-assist maneuvers are routinely used by navigators to reduce travel time and/or save on propellant. Supplementary inflatable tanks, on the other hand, are somewhat uncommon; for the depicted ship, they rise delta-V capacity to the whopping 81 km/s. Such velocity gain is usually enough for a rendezvous with commercial interstellar transport (which means, one-way trip to another star). An emergency delivery or a relatively fast interplanetary transfer is also an opton.
Cargo load is only limited by the mission's delta-V requirements. Older designs had a number of standardized couplings for different kinds of payload, but nowadays everything, from containers to satellites, is attached to cargo truss with cables and duct tape (space grade duct tape, mind you, but still duct tape).
Unlike electrostatically propelled unmanned spacecrafts, capsule ships are commonly equipped with optimized closed-cycle gas core nuclear rockets. SMC-25's main propulsion system has specific impulse of 2980 seconds, clean non-radioactive exhaust and high thrust power. The ship usually performs two burns — at the start and the end of the trajectory — and spends most of its mission time in artificial gravity mode. Command module's decks are at 55–85 meters distance from the center of rotation; at 3–3.5 rotations per minute the ship is able to support comfortable for Dapfnib 7.2 m/s2 gravity on board.
Related content
Comments: 33
You design spacecrafts just as I like them... Hopefully I will have my fizarian spacecrafts set soon as well.
I love when people use realistic aspects and dont throw everything all over the place.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks
Well, for the sake of visual appearance, some additional details could be useful... But on the other hand, our vehicles in general seem to be getting more sleek exterior shapes with less details as technology progresses, so I guess it could be applied to the future spacecrafts as well.
So, are there private spaceships in Fizarian civilization?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes there are sorta private but they are very hard to come by unless you have a high position in the megacorp. Usually spacecrafts are owned by the company and used for travel between the gas giant moons or to explore the solar system. In present time they havent made much ships at all that takes use of their alcubierre drives. The rest of the spacecrafts are cargo haulers that moves cargo between the moons and their homeworld. Most of their spacecrafts are designed to just travel in local space around the gas giant as all the activity happens on their homeworld and the other orbiting moons around the gas giant.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Such is life in a universe governed by the Tyranny of Rocket Equation...
Still, it is decent enough for a single Dapfnekh. If there is a need to transport several passengers, additional inflatable habitat is attached to the ship's forward docking port.
(By the way, ever heard of capsule hotels? That's what I call "not much living space".)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ah, everything is relative, of course.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Ok I confess I haven’t really looked over this yet (but you know I totally will when I get a chance 😊👍), still gotta comment cuz AHHHHHH IT’S SO NICE TO HAVE STUFF FROM YOU AGAIN!!!! BEEN SO LONG!!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Feel free to make critical comments or suggestions.
By the way, I hope we'll see something new from you as well
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I really love this design. It's perfectly representative of the artfully functional aesthetic you've set up for your universe, and to be honest I could see SpaceX designing something similar in the relatively near future. 
And of course, I caught the duct tape reference. Can't go wrong with duct tape.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you, Doug 
"Artfully functional aesthetic" is a rather complimentary wording of the fact that I only manage to come up with details which have definite functional purpose
Well, technically there is nothing impossible in designing a similar spaceship with our current technology (it has already been done on paper , for that matter). Still, normally I'd say this is highly unlikely and we should be more realistic... But then again, we're talking about the company lead by the man who launched his car past Mars orbit and named the new super heavy-lift rocket BFR, so the definition of "realistic expectations" is a bit vague in this case
I know, right? Like, if a coupling mechanism breaks, you have to repair or replace it; if duct tape breaks, you just add more duct tape!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Havent gone through all the text, but its pretty cooll space ship
and im glad to see more stuff from you
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you
I only hope it won't get completely outdated in a year, like the two previous spaceships.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is a very innovative design for a hard speculative fiction private craft. The utilization of entirely known propulsion and detection systems make it belivable while still retaining a certain "space age" feel.
Also, bonus points for mentioning the most versitile tool known to sapient critters: duct tape. Able to fix anything from minor wounds to hull breaches ^^_^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you, but I'm afraid it's not innovative at all. It is basically a simplistic rip-off of William Black's Nuclear OTV (by the way, check his other works, they're awesome), to say nothing of a dozen other nuclear-propelled spaceship designs. My only excuse is that such design seems to be the most obvious, and also looking similar to the concepts of more knowledgeable people adds to credibility.
Regarding known propulsion, I am somewhat proud to announce that, indeed, if you lower main engine's Isp about twice and tweak command module's tanks a little, you'll pretty much get something we're technically able to build with our current technology.
And, in fact, I wouldn't mind to hear what other kinds of sensors/detection systems you can think of, because my ideas are mostly limited by the ones we already have.
Duct tape. Duct tape never changes.
Since the dawn of human kind, when our ancestors first discovered the sticky power of adhesion, things have been attached to each other in the name of everything: from practical reasons to jokes to simple, unexpected accidents (Okay, I should probably stop at this point).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
oh, I haven´t seen his art before, thanks for linking it ^^_^^
Most similar things I´ve seen are from NASA or the soviets, from the people who wanted more space race than just the moon. But I guess that´s why I liked the design: it´s so obvious.
I was mostly referring to the style of them, but I´ve seen sci fi ships with neutrino scanners (seems to be radar, but with neutrinos) "gravity curve detectors" (probably detecting the mass of other ships) and one book I read used some particle/radiation/funny-thing-happening-to-space-time that was a consequence of their FTL (even used as a plot point, though I won´t spoil), and some use quantum something fields. Psionics have also been encountered (though one might argue they are not technically detection systems, but senses). But mostly softer stuff that is either "In Theory" or "In theory we haven´t completed/Don´t have/don´t match known reality".
(It seems softer sci fi can make tech from any technobabble that sounds cool enough, so I probably missed several uses of other handwaves that was incorporated full into the story.)
I stick to radar, ladar, heat, etc myself, while leaving the possibility that someone may have had better stuff, but we (current galactic civilization) isn´t going to find out.
Well, who said jokes isn´t a practical application .
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well, there are spaceborne neutrino detectors in ISFU, as well as more speculative WIMP detectors, but both are used to study interior of large celestial bodies (apparently dark matter particles are perfect for that ; if they exist, that is). Neutrino detection, to my knowledge, may potentially be useful as a means to spot operating power plant no matter the shielding, but detectors themselves are massive, and discerning the desired signature against background radiation seems to be somewhat tricky.
There is gravity wave detection as well, conducted by extensive networks of orbital laser interferometers and used to track warp drives' wake.
All aforementioned, however, is hardly applicable as widely used onboard sensors, so I guess, indeed, we're stuck with already existing technology here.
Maybe they are; I simply tried to make it sound as close to the original Fallout quote as possible.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh, Cool! I mean, it might not be as useful for detecting a powered-down spaceship as radar, they still sound really cool.
That is something I think is underutilized in sci fi though: doing science about planets and stars from space.
Also, that does give me a weakness to use against stealth ships: you can't capture your neutrinos, so someone with a neutrino detector can see that something is up. And as you said, such detectors would be massive, explaining why stealth is still an efficient tactic.
(I would still expect anyone attempting stealth to power down their fusion reactor/engines, however the plutonium in a fission reactor/start phase is always decaying and emitting particles.)
Well, your version made more sense XD
Because war always changes.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Detecting stealth ships is an interesting possibility (at least for the fictional universes where they exist). By the way, even the supposedly "clean" fusion reactions, like D+3He, emit small quantities of neutrons and thus make reactor components radioactive over time, so powering down is going to reduce detection chances, but won't eliminate them completely.
As for studying planets from space, my first characters for the setting were cartographers, so, naturally, I gave this subject a little thought.
I do agree with you on that. However, it is often assumed that if a speech sounds cool enough, it doesn't have to make sense
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yup. And that is something I think most people arguing about the viability of stealth in space miss: stealth isn't about being invisible, never has been. It's about seeing the enemy before they see you. I usually count "proxy stealth", looking like someone else or filling enemy radar with garbage data to jam their targeting, because it is essentially the same thing if means your enemy is dead and you isn't. And I like to give my tech limitations; I think it makes it feel more realistic.
And that is true, all fusion releases ionizing radiation. That might be mitigated by jettisoning affected parts before going stealth (if you have a good supply of replacements, that is). Though those parts, if identified as recently jettisoned engine parts, could lead someone to find your location anyway. It feels like the whole stealth thing could be nested into an infinite loop with this tech XD
Considering the technology of my setting, FTL in particular, I don't know if spaceborne planetary mapping infrastructure would be common: it's usually faster to just go and have a look, pointing the LADAR downwards while doing it (since you probably arrived in a craft capable of reaching orbit on it's own). Cartographers would probably still be as important for mapping new colonies though.
That might be true. The speech announcing the Apollo Programme did say "not because it is easy, but because it is hard" as a reason to go to the moon, ignoring all the other things that are also hard to do.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It is curious how often introduction of a single technology to the setting has far-reaching consequences and can lead to complex new tactics, like the multistage stealth and detection you proposed.
Actually, modern satellite mapping isn't nearly as much about "go have a look" as it is about "keep an eye on everything". From physical maps updates to global weather forecasting to vegetation monitoring, there is a great amount of tasks that are most efficiently carried out by observation from space, if only because atmoshperic flights can't give you equally wide coverage. The only alternative is to saturate a planet's atmosphere with drones, and surface with monitoring stations, which would be more costly and probably less eco-friendly (although I can see it done at homeworlds and colonies settled long ago).
Also, to map a planet's interior the way I suggested earlier, one will need neutrino detectors to be moved around a lot. The easiest way to do so is to have them in orbit, so it is simply a logical choice.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The unexpected ramifications of new technologies often lead to plotholes. While this is often ignored in softer sci fi and handwaved, I´ve always been bugged by it. Case in point: Star Trek transporters: just store the information used, and beam down a new Picard/Kirk if the old one is killed.
That´s actually the main reason I limited my universe to one single handwavium: manipulating gravity (a lot), while everything else is at least somewhat supported by known science.
That is true. There is a lot of tasks more easily done from space. (I were mostly referring to surveying other planets myself, in the sense that it doesn´t give you very much to launch an expensive space telescope when a corvette can go to any system said telescope would give valuable data on, and then return with scan data, in a few hours for a fraction the cost.)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh, don't even get me started on Star Trek transporters!
Ah, I see. Indeed, regular surveying is likely to be carried out by FTL spaceships in your setting. Although I guess orbital telescopes still can be used for purely scientific purposes, like studying the past of the distant planetary systems.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
XD
Actually, I think that's how star trek's fabricators work: They use stored information to flash-convert some energy into whatever it's been told to fabricate, be it replacement parts, a cup of hot earl gray tea, or a bomb. In the reboot timeline, there is a type of transporter able to beam over interstellar distances faster than starships can travel, causing more problems: you can do all what you said, from the comfort of a federation homeworld!
Yeah, I guess. It would give you some oppurtunity to witness past events, if your telescope is powerful enough. You might also use them for military purposes: watching for RKMs. Granted, your information will be years out of date, but the missiles are likely already placed at most one jump from your systems Oort Cloud.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes, that was the moment that permanently ruined the reboot universe for me. During the rest of the film, I was thinking: why are you sending a giant starship after a man who have just teleported? How can you threaten him with your allegedly destructive torpedoes if he can teleport like that? What are you even thinking? What were the scenarists thinking? What was the director thinking when he approved this?
It's like they tell us: if you want to enjoy the movie, turn off the areas of your brain responsible for critical thinking 
One interesting thought is that you can use gravitational lensing to try to study catasrophic events which wiped out advanced ancient civilizations (I'm not sure if there are any in GiC, but I think I've seen a couple of indirect mentions).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Especially since they could have just given him a black-ops shuttle capable of warp (double as fast as whatever the Enterprise is doing), and just have him teleport himself through having a well coordinated plan. Then they could at least have some explanation for why he wouldn´t just teleport back to federation space when star fleet shows up.
Sadly many newer films just spray the special effects without giving to much thought to the story.
There are known to have been several ancient civilizations that are now long-gone in GiC, but I haven´t integrated any younger than 200 000 years into either lore or plot. It could become an interesting bit of plot though, since any event destroying a space-faring species, even a non-FTL one, would have to be truly destructive.
Just out of curiosity, do you think it could be possible for photons to enter orbits around black holes?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well, HISHE pretty much summarized it all.
I wouldn't say it is necessarily the problem of the newer films, though. The reason it seems so is a particular case of survival bias: only the best or outstanding in some way pieces of art and material culture are remembered decades later. There could have been just as many movies with stupid stories and obvious plot holes in the past, but they — understandably — didn't linger in people's memory.
Yes, that's what I was thinking. However, 200 000 years is well beyond the limits of what you can see while remaining in the same galaxy.
I won't claim to have any solid knowledge on the subject, but as far as I understand it, photons either escape from black hole's gravity well, or become trapped beyond event horizon. In the latter case, they are spiraling towards singularity and slowing down because of time dilation caused by spacetime curvature. From a hypothetic external observer's point of view, photons will never reach singularity, so I guess you can say it's almost as if they are in orbit; but you won't be able to detect them anyway, since to do that you'll need to go beyond event horizon yourself (which means you won't return anyway) and then catch up with them (which means moving faster than light).
...
Waaaaitabit...
Our settings have FTL, don't they? So does it mean it is theoretically possible to catch photons and escape event horizon?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh, yeah, I saw that. They are one of my favorite channels ^^_^^
And that probably is true: the only movies I can name older than me are either so good they became classics or so bad they became classics. If we include B-movies, humanity probably produces more movies each week than I can name.
One way it is used quite oftenly to study past events is the study of very recent events. Namely, the Sepentin Meritocracy's main counter-piracy strategy: rather than placing expensive defence fleets around each member world, they keep rapid-response battlegroups with hundreds state-of-the-art warships at nexus points where they can reach any planet under attack in a few minutes. When they arrive, they jump a ship to a few light-minutes away to record enemy drive emissions. This information is used to hunt down the attacking force by means of "we have enough corvettes to survey every mass you could have jumped to in 30 seconds, and recharge our drives fast enough we'll get to you within an hour".
Well, I think the keyword is theoretically. Time dilation at the event horizon would be extreme, and spaghettification* would also occur. While I don't know how it would affect all concievable (and magic) FTL-methods, the massive signature from a black hole might deny a lock-on point for my jump drives or prevent the corridor from forming, depending on what a singularity actually does. If your FTL isn't disturbed by the gravity well and we make strong enough materials, then maybe it's time to do science
*it's the scientific term. I promise.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The study of recent events is an obvious option; I did include it into ISFU as well.
Of course, I didn't say "theoretically" for nothing
The fact that we have to use the term "spaghettification" to describe a natural phenomenon... Could it be yet another indisputable proof of the existence of our god and creator the Flying Spaghetti Monster? (The first and most evident proof is, of course, the fact that most celestial bodies are shaped like meatballs.)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I agree, especially since it gives you such an intel advantage. If you can ensure a 0% survival rate of those who attack your colonies, people are going to be less inclined to attack.
Well, it might be possible with just enough brute force. However, I fell pretty comfortable saying that science might be easier in terms of overcoming a black hole.
It seems that being forced to use sub-light close to planets is common in military Sci Fi; after all, if you could just jump in above the bad guy base, when would all the cool space battles take place? tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php…
However, my novel builds heavily around FTL being used close to planets, so much, in fact, that if most drives even can be used in deep space it would spawn more plot holes than a Star Trek transporter could. I just designed my starship scuffles around (fully-newtonian) aerial combat with nukes and FTL thrown in.
Another reason behind my FTL is civilian travel: the slower the passenger shuttles are, the less damage you can do with them. Making them mostly like passenger planes felt safe, if unimaginative.
Inter-planetary FTL (and potential for inter-planetary FTL ICBMs) is sadly underused in fiction though.
Must be. Maybe it means all the heretics should be fed to a kuegerblitz?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That is true, at least for the settings where colony raids by militant groups are possible.
With ISFU, it is not about battles, really (they may happen in space, but they aren't cool anyway). It is simply the fact that I want my space opera to be, well, space opera. With planet-to-planet jumps, there will be little to no reason to develop actual spacefaring. In GiC, you partially circumvent this by adding gravity manipulation and allowing exponential economy growth, which makes space flights extremely cheap; in ISFU, that may not work. Also, neat idea on exploiting the space is air trope by actually placing your spaceship battles in atmosphere
Although usually I tend to despise dogmatism, in this particular case I'm feeling the urge to remind you of the Second I’d Really Rather You Didn’t:
"I’d Really Rather You Didn’t use my existence as a means to oppress, subjugate, punish, eviscerate, and/or, you know...be mean to others. I don’t require sacrifices, and purity is for drinking water, not people."
Which means, His Noodliness is likely to disapprove of feeding people to kugelblitz or any other object, animate or inanimate, simply because they adhere to different belief systems. And, personally, I find this explicit statement to be a very important part of His teaching.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, in settings where it´s less of a concern it would be less useful.
Well, in much high-realism-fragile-warship sci fi the battles tend to be short and distinctly "not cool on the big screen". That doesn´t make them any less interesting though, especially since new, innovative, tactics emerge when you don´t just close to visual range and slug it out.
Also, yes, with planet-to-planet jumps, most of everything happens on planets, unless it´s related closely to a developed planet. My main human examples being Earth conducting mining in the belts and Capricon having defenses and military bases on all their moons.
Deep-space FTL really is preferable in a setting such as yours.
Well, what can I say? If at least one side is close to a planet/moon in 70% of skirmishes, it seemed to make sense that "space" forces would evolve strategies more reminiscent of the aircrafts that their warships grew from than naval combat. However, I try to still keep it consistent with how space actually works.
Ok, I´ll keep that in mind. It´s been quite a while since I read it.
I´ll have to find another link between pasta and black holes though. Maybe harnessing the power of a black hole to heat water is the ultimate way of boiling pasta?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
For the participants, a typical space combat in ISFU is more like a mathematical exercise than a violent skirmish. Surely not everyone will find it interesting.
The worst thing is when setting's rules don't actually prohibit planet-to-planet jumps, but characters (and other inhabitants of the fictional universe) ignore such possibility completely until the plot demands it. And forget about it again as soon as the story arc ends.
Well, I haven't seen anything clearly inconsistent so far. Just make sure engines' thrust vector of your ships is in line with their centers of mass
Ah, I'm afraid we're entering the field of some really deep theological question here.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well, it could still be an interesting touch and logical extrapolation of the environment for those who like to study all the inner workings of different settings.
Yeah, I really agree with that. Sadly, that kills some sci fi franchises for me: if you can do that, and your enemy can´t, how do you ever lose fast-attack?
Or some that uses hyperspace variations where you can´t damage each other; then two chapters later they have to power down everything, including life support, to look like corpses when enemies pass by.
Good ^^_^^ If you see any inconsistencies however, please tell me. I strive to make the setting as consistent and realistic as possible. (well, as far as realistic goes when you have cheap FTL, gravity manipulation, and most aliens are fairly like humans.)
And I will keep that in mind
Well, considering that I´m not very religious, but very practical, I think I´ll leave the field then. When theological experts have found some theory, I´ll see how well it can be applied.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0